Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius

“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius”

is a quote from a great video demonstrating how teamwork and agile concepts at IDEO is used to successfully deliver innovation and solutions in a non-IT environment in just 5 days!

Some highlights which I thought were pertinent to agile:

• The people are not experts at any given area.  They innovate by using and applying the process.
• The person leading the team is the leader because he is good with groups, not because of seniority.
• There are no titles, no permanent (role) assignments – everyone is a generalist but brings specific skills.
• Everyone communicates and share what they learn.
• Iterative development with showcases/demonstrations of prototypes to get feedback for the next iteration of the product.
• Some of IDEO’s mantra for innovation:
• One conversation at a time
• Stay focused on topic
• Encourage wild ideas
• Defer judgment
• Build on the ideas of others
• No criticisms (this is self moderated)
• Time-boxing, to prevent the process from going on for ever (Parkinson’s Law and Pareto Principle comes to mind).
• Self-organization.
• Team judges what are the best ideas (team votes).
• Fail often in order to succeed sooner (fail safe culture).
• Having an open mind – think outside the box.
• Belief that focused chaos can be constructive.
• High use of visualization tools, story boards, information radiators.
• Fresh ideas come faster in a fun place.
• High level of collaboration.
• Teamwork, teamwork, and more teamwork!